“WIN”. What’s Important Now

 As we approach our first meet this weekend it might be a good time to talk about expectations.  What are yours?  What are mine?  Are they similar, probably not so let’s dive into them. When you go into a meet is it "beneficial to expect for you to achieve a specific outcome or to let go of expectations altogether."  Quite a dilemma young athletes are faced with especially swimmers because we all look at that stopwatch to measure our success or failure.  Don't get me wrong either, a personal best is important and it's an awesome feeling when you see that time posted. Are your expectations a personal record, win your heat, win the event or maybe just survive the event.  Whatever it is I know it's important to you but I am going to dispense some of my advice from my meandering experiences from coaching.  The important question to ask and worth trying to figure out is how to manage expectations and handle the results positive or negative because that will ultimately

This week we started handing out our group challenge coin.  What are these challenge coin and why are you getting them.  First off they are a way to award accomplishments and a commitment to our group and excellence.     They offer a story for this swim season, a group that you identify with and train with to achieve whatever goals you have.  They will remind us that we are in this together and that if we work hard  and pull for each other there is nothing that we can’t achieve.  It will remind us that we are doing something that we enjoy. I decided to hand these out individually as we work through the season.  I have given three out so far that have all been based on practice and the effort and sportsmanship that I see displayed.  Once you have one realized that I now am going to hold you to that standard that you displayed.  Don’t make me ask for it back.   Unlike tee shirts you will never out grow them so treasure them and understand the commitment you have made to yourself and the

 We had good week and got a lot of things accomplished last week.  We ended the week on Friday with a set that looked like this;  3 rounds of the following; 4x50 2x100 free,1x200free .  As we talked about our first meet is 2 weeks out and it's time that we start working on some race strategies.  Your 50's don't need a lot of strategies because it's all about "TAKE YOUR MARK, BEEP" and you go and get your fingers to the pad first. Simple right?  It is with the right attitude. These are the things to write in your journals.  Here is the wrap up from that little set, figure out your pace during the 200.  The first 50 is the hardest one to figure out because you can't go out to fast and at the same time you can't go out too slow.  So, coach what do I do? We will focus on it during practice and work through it together. Now for all of you who enjoy Math and working with formulas here is one for you. As we talked about it let your start (you need a great one

Hey kiddos we had a good start to the season last week so lets focus and continue that effort into our second full week of workouts.  My favorite kick set from last week; 4x25 kick build boards 4x50 back kick focus keep hips up tight core throw water off toes (bad habit using arms off walls. should only use arms flags into turns ) 4x25 kick BLAST PURPLE no boards 100 back swim (focus good rotation minimum 3 good underwater dolphins off turns) This will be one of our staple kick sets throughout our journey.  We spent a lot of time with our long axis drills (right and left hand lead) in a attempt to engage your hips and get you to think about swimming taller which can be a difficult concept for sprinters.  Notice how we are on our sides, nose down, top arm relaxed on side and out of water.  We are looking for "Good Body Position".  This week we will continue our work with our long axis drills (free and back), our turns (fast feet to wall) and get into our one of our short axis

 We’re back in the water and our first few workouts went really well.  All of your kids were awesome as we worked through what we were trying to get accomplished with the first few workouts.  Parents if you were upstairs watching did you ever ask yourself this, what exactly is going on and what are they trying to accomplish.   Believe it or not sometimes it will look like chaos but it is an organized chaos with a lot of working parts.  Sometimes it may look like the swimmers are just swimming back and forth along that black line but your children are given sets and what we are focusing on during the sets.  Talk to your swimmers about this because this is key to becoming a better swimmer and seeing good results at meets. All coaches incorporate drills within the sets given to the swimmers.  The sets will include any number of repeats designed to create muscle memory so that at a meet all your swimmer needs to do is race.  Over the years this is one area that I see a lot of younger swimm

 Welcome back.  Take a deep breath as that first day can make some of you a little anxious, but no worries.  Your teammates and coaches have you.  It's true that all of you have been around a pool and know what to expect, but the new season will see groups with new faces as we welcome new members to our team and see old veterans switching groups.  Needless to say this first week will have many moving parts and will be very fluid. So how can you best be prepared as you show up on the pool deck for that first practice, first be on time and ready to go.  It's already been said that if practice starts at 5 that means we are ready to go and not putting on our caps and goggles or looking for our equipment. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.  I think a lot of swimmers lose sight of how important it is to stay hydrated during workout after all you are surrounded by water.  The problem is that swimmers like all athletes sweat and yes that occurs even in the pool you just don't feel it.  So

  Our journey into this brand new season starts in 4 days. Have you sat down and envisioned how you would like it to end in late April. It all starts with a good attitude that first practice. This journey will be like a roller coaster ride with all the highs and lows and the key to having a successful journey is to stay balanced.  By all means celebrate your highs but don’t get too high because the lows are going to smack you in the face at any moment. Just like the highs don’t dwell too long on the lows, understand that it happens and move on to the next race, the next workout, or the next day. Let’s challenge ourselves to navigate those peaks and valleys in a healthy and productive way so that you can reap the rewards of your hard work and sacrifices. Every experience regardless of the outcome has value and it will be up to you to find that value, learn from it and move on to our next destination. What you do in practice TODAY will show up in a week, a month, six months, a year in a